NMPA Slaps Roblox With A $200 Million Lawsuit For Copyright Infringement
Roblox Corporation has been slapped with a $200 million copyright infringement lawsuit by The National Music Publishers' Association for “Roblox's unabashed exploitation of music without proper licenses.”
According to GamesIndustry.biz, the lawsuit claims that the studio is illegally using songs without the artists’ and publishers’ consent, including songs by Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, and The Rolling Stones.
The allegations stem from the fact that players can freely upload songs and other copyrighted content into their custom maps for a fee, something that the NMPA isn’t taking lightly.
“They’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars by requiring users to pay every time they upload music onto the platform – taking advantage of young people’s lack of understanding about copyright – and then they take virtually no action to prevent repeat infringement or alert users to the risks they are taking,” said NMPA President and CEO David Israelite.
Roblox responded to the lawsuit with this statement:
“As a platform powered by a community of creators, we are passionate about protecting intellectual property rights - from independent artists and songwriters, to music labels and publishers - and require all Roblox community members to abide by our Community Rules,” a spokesperson said.
“We do not tolerate copyright infringement, which is why we use industry-leading, advanced filtering technology to detect and prohibit unauthorized recordings. We expeditiously respond to any valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) request by removing any infringing content and, in accordance with our stringent repeat infringer policy, taking action against anyone violating our rules.”
“We are surprised and disappointed by this lawsuit which represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Roblox platform operates, and will defend Roblox vigorously as we work to achieve a fair resolution.”
Roblox reported a 140% increase in revenue in the first quarter of 2021 amounting to $387 million. The company, however, also reported net losses of $134 million in the same quarter. Q1 2021 also marked the company’s IPO with their first day of trading closing at a $38 billion market cap in March.
